Raise Your Voice for Shaker Aamer ; Newport, February 14th 2015

A quick  advertisement  for this event, a day of action taking place in Newport, Pembrokeshire, Wales  next Saturday 14th February, marking  the 13th anniversary of Shaker Aamers arrival at Guantanamo  its last British resident and the birthday of his youngest son. This man has faced  no charge and  has been cleared for release in 2007  and again in 2009, and over the years has had to endure all manners of torture and abuse.
We will be calling for his release, and his safe return to his family.

http://www.westandwithshaker.org/

I hope to  read the following  poem

For Shaker

Far from home, torn from  family and friends,
no place to run, no place to hide,
imprisoned in a man made hell,
in a cage of suffering, and isolation,
held without trial or charge,
Shaker's voice reaches us from afar,
from his prison cell, his shadow dances,
against the branches of iniquity,
we light candles to shine against the darkness that contain,
in the name of peace and justice,
our messages  keep calling for his freedom.

As days trickle  over captive thought,
it is time to restore some life and dignity,
as the world continues to recognise his plight,
we remember Shaker now,
his  hungry thirst for liberty,
between the sky and land,
fleeing into the future.
Every story hinges on a dream of change,
against  oppression and persecution,
with unflinching determination.
We wait for the walls of Guantanamo,
and its gates to crumble forever,
for voices within to wander freely once more.

"Let Them Freeze!" – Politicians in Frozen the Musical

Thousands will die from living in cold homes. Millions have to  make the desperate  choice between heating and eating. It is a national scandal. It is time to take action to help end  this cold home crisis.
1 person every  7 minutes freezes to death of related illnesses  as a result of being cold.
Here is a song  for our disgusting government. It is time to wake them up. In 2000 political parties promised  to end this scandal. 15 years later it is cleared they  failed. They  must be forced to commit the money to end this home crisis once and for all.


http://www.energybillrevolution.org

Royal Family : Stop pushing weapons to dictators

The Times newspaper reports today that Prince Charles " doesn't  like being used to market weapons and now sidesteps such activities where possible. " He has a funny way of showing it, at the end of the day he is nothing but a hypocrite.He is  about to go on  another little jaunt to the Middle East made at the request of the government. After  he recently  visiting Saudi Arabia, the arms company BAE systems  announced it had finished their latest multi-billion  pounds weapon deal.
Yes it's business as usual for members of the Royal family often seen dancing for autocratic rulers,  to be seen at sumptious dinner parties, where the Queen  entertains despots, torturers, dictators and murdering tyrants across the globe.
Daily they release their nauseating displays of wealth, power and privilege,  they are not powerless and  are certainly not harmless. The royal family also profits from  uranium and other components of the war machine through Royal Ordnance sales and exports.Instead of prancing around the international stage acting like arms dealers, toadying up to Friends of oppressors, perhaps they should start promoting human rights. At the moment I do not understand at all, why we offer them any respect at all.  It is time to start making peace profitable too. 

Inheritance - Heathcotte Williams, montage -Alex Cox

Palestine is not your Charity case

Palestine is not your charity case, your charity will not stop his bullets. There is only one side here. The beast  with the gun  and all his ilk must go.  The lioness has courage  and full rights, the west simply does not understand.

Langston Hughes (1/2/02 -22/5/67) - Dream Deferred

Happy birthday James Mercer Langston Hughes, pioneering African-American  social activist, novelist, playwright and Harlem Renaissance poet. He confronted racial stereotypes, and protested social conditions, he supported the Scottsboro boys, stood proudly with the anti fascists in the Spanish Civil War, and strongly opposed the McCarthy witchhunts,   and was to become known as a peoples poet. He was also one  of the earliest innovators, of the then new literary art form called jazz poetry,  the following poem of his was written 1951.

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
like a sugary sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like  a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

here's an animated google doodle celebrating his birthday and his poem ' I dream a word.'

France: Migrants, Asylum Seekers Abused and Destitute

Asylum seekers and migrants living in destitution in the port city of Calais experience harrassmet at the hands of French police. The abuses include beating and attacks with pepper spray as the migrants and asylum seekers walk in the streets or hide in trucks in the hope of travelling to the United Kingdom. We should not forget these ongoing  methods of repression against migrants that continue to happen on a daily basis. 
Also when European politicians from the extreme centre parties justify the deaths by drowning in the seas surrounding Fortress Europe on the grounds that this will dissuade people fleeing in search of a better life, We should not fail to notice why these people are here in the first place, humans trying desperately to escape conflict ridden countries trying to escape suffering,  fleeing from extreme poverty, seeking refuge  from violence and  persecution.We should remember who actually creates these unfair conditions in the first place. Is it not time to create and enforce a fair, coherent and humane asylum system. We must stop these individuals from being dehumanised. Often their journeys fraught  with danger, with at least 23,000  people estimated to  have lost   their lives trying to reach  Fortress Europe since 2001.
No person should be illegal, no borders are necessary.

Holocaust Memorial Day 70th anniversary lest we forget

A film made by Pembrokeshire animator from Newport  by the name of Gemma Green-Hope to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz- Birkenau .We should never forget this legacy of heartbreak, those that died in these Nazi Concentration Camps. The  gays, slavs, poles, Anarchists,  Communists, gypsies, Jehovah witnesses, resistance fighters ,trade-unionists, those with mental or physical illnesses, who did not fit into the Nazis warped  view. Today I remember all the precious human lives  lost during this holocaust. It would be so sad to forget even one precious life extinguished so ruthlessly. The past still tragically around us, in continuing crimes against humanity.
                                                                                                                             

Naima Shalhoub - Ferguson-Gaza Blues

Nina Simone said " that it is an artists  duty to reflect the times.", I take that call seriously"

Lebanese-Amercian singer perfoms her song  paying homage to the struggles of Ferguson and Gaza

Ysbryd/Spirit ( a poem for Dydd Santes Dwynwen / St Dwynwens day; The Welsh Patron Saint Of Lovers)

(for Jane and all lovers)

St Dwynwens spirit lives again today
dances on the earth, echoes amongst heartbeats,
she opens up our eyes, to unite and embrace
with residues  of light, releases feelings of joy,
traces the smiles of laughter and deep expression
the breath of kindness, the bliss of kiss,
moving us together, on paths of harmony
as we walk on strong, together hand in hand.

Though her tale was cruel, marked by pain
She wraps her arms around us gently,
to comfort and protect, the flow of shining time
shimmering with protective potency,
under star-studded sky, allows  goodness to prevail

she heals again, answers our whispering cry,
fortifies and keeps us warm, in the name of love
her flame planting chords of harmony and peace.

A beacon of hope, enables hearts to conquer 

unweighted. unburdened,  unconstrained,
allows poetry to flourish, to be shared
moments to cherish, the taste of  ebullience,

Welsh lovers look to  her for help in courting their true love
or for forgetting a false one, that became an obstacle, 
a sparkle that flutters amongst the crazy folds of life
infuses the world again, with scents of passion.

Free Raif Badawi blogger who dared to criticise Saudi Arabian clerics.

It is time to free Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger who is to be publicly flogged 50 times, each week who is to be publicly flogged 50 times, each week over 20 weeks for daring to criticise  Saudi Arabian clerics, despite  appeals around the world for him to be pardoned.
Flogging is prohibited under  the convention against torture a law which Saudi Arabia is party to. Badawi was found guilty  last year of  insulting Saudi Arabian clerics on his blog Free Saudi Liberals, a now shut website he created.He was given a sentence  of a decade in prison and 1,000 lashes. A court  had originally sentenced him to 600  lashes and  7 years in prison, but a judge increased the sentence after appeal.
All that he did was write about secularism, and about what it meant for him, a free society and freedom of expression.He has become a symbol for many thousands of other men and women who are in prison for doing nothing more than expressing their opinion.
We must stand with him and condemn  the use of this cruel  inhuman and degrading punishment in all circumstances.
His flogging has been postponed on medical grounds,  but this does not mean his suffering has ended. His flogging could resume at any time.
Keep up the pressure.



https://www.change.org/p/free-and-safeguard-the-liberal-saudi-raif-badawy-no-600-lashes

http:/campaigns.amnesty.org/actions/write-for-rights-raif-badawi